thelee

Boy now I know that Berkano's Folly is supposed to be overly brutal for a level 7 party. I kept being in utter disbelief how high enemy defenses were. "I mean, I'm glad POTD is finally challenging," I muttered to myself, "but maybe we overshot it here." Second the request that we get these difficulty indicators back for "only scale up" setting.

OK, I think I figured it out. The problem is that how the "coefficient" is computed is not completely obvious and apparently a little inconsistent. So to elaborate the problem is actually that dual wielding is not a .3 modifier in the equation. In-game it reduces recovery time by 30%, which means in reality it increases the rate of your recovery by 1.428x (eg 1 / (1 - .3)), and that's what the coefficient is (this is mentioned in a random post in the linked thread about action speed). Similarly you get dual-wielding style, while the game says it's 15% faster, it's actually computed like 1/.85 to get a coeff of 1.176 (eg 1 / (1 - .15)). Similarly, the -50% reload speed modifier is probably actually implemented as a +100% to your action rate, for a coeff of 2. Similarly, gunner is probably implemented like 1/.8 with a coeff of 1.25x. So instead of 21 + .3 + .15 + .2 you'd get .21 + .428 + .176 + .25 or 5 / 2.064 = 2.42s. Add the 50% reloading modifier from the modal and you get 5 / (2.064 + 1) = 1.63s I think this might explain what's going on. Add in sharpshooter penalty and alternately take out the two-weapon style and you get reload times of 2.54s or 2.79s which (if the game truncates trailing after the first decimal) matches your original post. EDITed to add: it probably requires a lot of paying attention to how the game phrases specific modifictions to your recovery/attack speed. The internal metric is "how quickly you advance through action frames" (or what we should call "action rate"). So when the game says "-15% to weapon recovery" for two-weapon style, there's no concept of weapon recovery internally, so it has to convert it into an effect on your "action rate," which the game designers did so by doing 1 / .85 to produce a coefficient for your "action rate" of 1.176. When the game says "-20% reload speed" similarly there's no concept fo this internally so it has to be converted into an effect on your "action rate" which is 1/.8 to get a coefficient of 1.25.

So I think the formula that MaxQuest is obsolete. Your numbers seem a lot more consistent with multiplicative "rate" bonuses for speed. I can reproduce them if I assume something like: 5s base * (1/1.21) * (1/(1 + .3 + .15)) * (1/1.2) = 2.4s, with rounding (2.37s specifically) add in the -50% reload speed modifier 2.37s base * 1/1.5 = 1.6s with rounding (1.58s specifically) this may just be a coincidence though, because i can't really reproduce any of the other numbers in this thread, unless you've not been explicit about various action speed/recovery adjustments you have. EDIT: ignore this post, see below

Looks like the old backer beta thread was locked (possibly upon release): https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95847-attackaction-speed-thread I ask because there's this bug thread: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/97571-math-problems-with-passives/ and from it either I don't correctly understand how to use the equation, or something is different/buggy between the last backer beta and release. Calling MaxQuest and co for help!

Curious; MaxQuest and co seemed pretty confident that they had the right equations. It'd be interesting to see if this means that something has actually changed between the last backer beta and release.

Bonuses and penalties don't combine that simply. See this thread: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95847-attackaction-speed-thread/ Notably, modifiers are not strictly additive or multiplicative, and penalties are weighted in such a way that they matter more (when combined with bonuses). There are also diminishing returns to stacking on bonuses. If you're used to pillars of eternity 1, this is a sea change from how things used to be, which was a little more straightforward IMO (though still not like how you put in either scenario like in the OP). Using the equations in that thread and your OP: final recovery = 5 / speed_coeff steps_sum = (1.21 - 1) /*dex*/ + (1.3 - 1) /*2w*/ + (1.15 - 1) /*2w style*/ + (1.2 - 1) /*gunner*/ + (1 - 1 / .9) /*sharpshooter penalty*/ steps_sum = .21 + .3 + .15 + .2 -.11 steps_sum = .75 speed_coeff = steps_sum + 1 => final recovery = 5 / 1.75 = ~2.85s, which is in the right ballpark of what you see in-game (though i imagine some more context would get it all the way to the exact values).

Well the main thing that is required for that to work is a big supply of surplus souls somewhere (the beyond perhaps). Without this not only is population effectively capped, but at the rate we see the negative effects of the fragmenting and recombining of souls (a few generations in many cases) I don't think the large time scales work. Not that I mind all that much. I can suspend my disbelieve. I just like to think about these things. I think it's safe to say she isn't entirely trustworthy. An interesting pickle (when talking about the need for surplus souls) is that with respect to the real world, human population growth was really muted for much of human history. You might get some growth in Europe for a while, and then there will be some cataclysmic plague. Growth in China, and then some natural disaster. Growth in Persia and then massive war. It was only with industrialization that human productivity improved where we started seeing sustained exponential population explosion. Pillars of Eternity is pointedly set at the cusp of industrialization (i.e. renaissance), so it's a world that is not yet set for dramatic population explosion but it could happen. If we're seeing the effects of soul fragmentation now (though there are strong souls out there), it raises questions what an industrialized, booming, modern Eora would be like, even if there is a font from which new souls could come from. I'm guessing animancy would have to play a huge role.

Aside from the lore discussion on rymrgand, I suspect the main reason why we don't see other gods is a) limited time and b) limited design space. I think B is pertinent because we already have some overlap with Eothas and Magran IMO, at least that's the sense I get whenever I'm creating umpteenth priest. In general, the pantheon has quite a bit of fuzzy overlaps in deity portfolios; some examples I can think of: Berath, Eothas, Ondra, and Rymrgand all have some overlap with mortality and bringing about death in ways that can be sometimes super subtle to distinguish; Wael and Ondra can overlap with their portfolios on obscuring/forgetting. I mean, some of this is apparent in how deities are allied with each other, but even then. I have a sense that the five gods in PoE were mostly chosen for the relative ease with which they could be distinguished from each other given the somewhat limited gameplay options. Deadfire affords more opportunity for distinction (with the bonus spells), but they needed continuity with PoE and they are mostly limited on time (plus five options is way more "subclassing" options than most other classes get). Also one thing worth pointing out is that I would not put the deities as any particular form of morality. They are so far removed from day-to-day human norms that one could not really consider something that they themselves do as necessarily good or bad (with possible exception of Eothas, but then again he embodied Waidwen to go on a massive rampage and who knows what he's up to in Deadfire). I say this mostly because of people arguing that Rymrgand is not cruel because entropy is naturalistic. I think that's irrelevant. Followers of Rymrgand interpet Rymrgand how they want, and it personally makes sense to me that compared to the hopefulness of Eothas and the stoic inevitability of Berath, looking forward to the soul heat death of the universe could be channeled into a fairly cruel disposition amongst Rymyrgand's followers (and nihilistic if that were an option). Also in contrast to some prior posters, I personally find Wael to be the most interesting deity, lore-wise. In Deadfire, the fact that you pick up confusion and illusion magic also makes a Wael-ian priest play out pretty interestingly imo.

This, +1000. "Realism" in and of itself is not a criteria that makes a game good. A game should be relatable enough given the real world, but detailed realism for realism's sake is not necessarily going to be fun. I mean, you're talking about the specifics of half-swording in a game where people are using little rods to shoot balls of energy at each other (implements) and can go for extreme stretches of time without having to eat and when was the last time you saw your characters go the restroom? Sorry to rant, it just reminds me of people complaining about realism in Age of Empires II, forgetting that realism goes out the window when you run entire empires with apparently less than 200 discrete people (the normal unit cap). Games are about abstractions.

Did you try this? MaxQuest I think tried this with no luck (a bug).

lololol, so at negative deflection the enemy is actively moving into where you are swinging your weapon?

I think it would be more confusing if they tagged the spells appropriately and they still didn't work properly. At least the way it is now, by and large things work literally. I.E., there are no electrical priest spells in the BB and--perhaps unsurprisingly--Heart of the Storm literally does nothing for a priest. The way JE Sawyer was talking about it, it sounded like there's some mechanism to tag "secondary" effects from a spell with the keyword, current implementation (where that's not happening) is buggy. I hope this is the case, because one surprising thing about the old Heart of the Storm/Scion of Flame/etc from Pillars (and even from IWD/IWD2) is that they affected pretty much all of the matching damage sources, which opened up some interesting possibilities. Making it much more conditional would be a game design regression in my book.

I filed a bug way back in BB1 about this, but I'm guessing it didn't get much prioritization. I'm fine with "zoning-out" area of effect abilities, but boy does it need to be properly signalled to players.

In the twitch Q&A that happened very recently, someone asked about this and JE Sawyer seemed to suggest that this is definitely a bug. The ability tagging is a little complicated, it sounds like in some cases (like the summoned weapon or warding seal) the ability itself shouldn't be tagged, but the sub-ability effects (the shock lash, or the actual triggered seal damage) should be internally tagged or something. Anyway, I can definitely confirm that there's no "internal tagging" since I tested out these abilities just to make sure they weren't secretly working. But I hope JE Sawyer's answer means that they're aware of this and fixing it, because again to reiterate it seems silly that you can pick up talents that have zero impact on your character.

I guess I should elaborate that I have a 2017 Macbook Pro (with discrete GPU), in case hardware differences matter. On latest OS X update. I suppose next time I could wait for a long time to see if it quits on its own, but after 10-20 seconds of staring at a frozen game screen I take that as a clue enough that I should apple-option-escape.

The big problem is that the blights spawn in huge numbers without any announcement. If there's an element of surprise of such a huge swing in degree (versus a couple scarabs, or even a couple scarabs plus a blight or two), it is bad game design to not forecast it to the player. If a player is to lose, the player should lose because they weren't good enough, not because they lacked some particular metagame knowledge about the fight. I'd actually like to see you post a video of you taking on the fight as it is, on PotD. I reckon that it is essentially impossible without dissecting the fight into an encounter that was not intended by design (i.e. separating the fight in some way). Way to rewrite history. People cried about their party members being knocked out by beetles because the early PoE backer beta had a bug with them that made them hardier than intended. They were never supposed to be that hard. Obsidian has already confirmed in this thread that the fight as it is right now is already not the fight that they have intended, so I don't know what you're trying to defend here.

I mean, in real life if you manage to sneak up to someone and cleave them with a two-handed sword, that's going to be way more effective than a tiny dagger

I'd recommend asking this question on Pillars boards rather than the Deadfire boards (or asking a mod to move this). That said I'll answer your questions quickly. If you're okay with a fairly steep learning curve I'd say start on PotD. Hard gets too easy too quickly and whilst you'll have a tough time whilst you learn the mechanics and strategies necessary for PotD, at least it'll remain challenging for longer. As for dumping stats: I never drop them below 8 and have no problems. A very useful thing to remember is stats don't matter anywhere near as much in PoE as they do in things like NWN or BG2. If you see a build you like the look of with dumped stats you can probably modify it without any real difficulties. Stats do matter, but in a different way from BG2 and even NWN. BG2 stats didn't matter unless they were at certain critical thresholds or you were a specific class (basically all non-casters could dump wisdom, charisma, and intellect, strength under 16 was pretty much indistinguishable aside from carry weight and then you could get a bag of holding). 3e/NWN is a bit better but it was still a case where some stats were basically useless for certain classes. Stats in PoE generally always matter, but they are structured in a way that it's very hard to get a "trap build" i.e. a completely unviable character. Path of the Damned is a little bit more punishing so it is possible to create characters that are more readily to unviable (a fighter that has dumped con and resolve is one example I could think of), so you have to be a bit more considerate about your stat choices. But you can always respec your main character aside from your race, so if you think you messed up your stats you can pay some money and try again.

It is pretty ability/spell specific. There are rough guidelines, but lots of discretion on a per-spell basis. IF you have the backer beta, you can open a spell and hover over damage numbers or some such and get a breakdown of how your power level factors into it. Singleclass vs Multiclass: IIUC the experience per level is the same, but you get different power level rate when multiclassing, I think 2/3 of normal. (When I played with single-classing, you got a power level every other level, when I played around with multi-classing I got one every three levels.) In this way a multi-class character is not just strictly better than a single-class character. Though due to how differently power levels influence abilities and spells, it can be argued that 2/3 penalty isn't that much of a penalty for certain abilities.

With the exception of Deadfire's Wild Leech, it's worth keeping in mind that even in PoE there were specifically-designated afflictions and we still had various custom debuff spells, and I think it was a deliberate decision to boost their power levels so they could stack on top of an existing Blind, for example. Similarly, while you could approximate Devotions of the Faithful with a might inspiration, a high perception inspiration, and the related afflictions on the enemy, I think it is intended that it uses a separate might and accuracy adjustment so it can stack on top of all other might/perception effects (with the additional effect of not countering/being countered by inspirations/afflictions). Sure, it might be a bit "messier," but I think the true fun of game systems can be where limited deviation is made from set norms, provided the norms are well-established. (That being said, however much I play a priest I can't help but confess that in both PoE and its current form in Deadfire, Devotions of the Faithful is ridiculously powerful.)

I do agree on deflection. It indeed had increasing returns. And in specific scenarios bumping RES could make a big difference. Although overall, I was and still am finding RES stat in PoE1 underwhelming. Now regarding "intrinsic" - it's just a word that I use (haven't found a better one yet), to denote that the "relative" gain per point is going down the more you invest: - from 10 MIG to 11 MIG: 1.03/1 = x1.03 - from 20 MIG to 21 MIG: 1.33/1.30 = x1.023 Quite often for an auto-attacker it's better to take 20 MIG and 11 DEX, than 21 MIG and 10 DEX. So even if a character selects 1-2 primary stats, he might want to smooth the stat-curve a bit instead of min-maxing too heavily. The idea was to point that the game already has a very soft mechanism against putting all attribute points into one single stat. Agreed. I wasn't saying that Resolve was a decent stat, but because of its increasing returns there were thresholds where it could go from "underwhelming" to "amazing and absolutely critical." I don't know what a better word is for "intrinsic" other than "when-you-are-multiplying-two-linear-stats-its-better-to-have-a-square-than-a-skinny-rectangle" but that's a mouthful . I mean, it's still technically not diminishing returns, but you are indeed shifting the curve around a bit.

My internet sucks so I'll need to wait another 3 hours for the patch, so this is for the most part baseless conjecture, but I have my reservations about all the passives being added being such a good idea. In games like this, I always pick few active abilities and a lot of passives, so it felt refreshing to me that I was actually forced to pick up some actives once in a while, or had to multiclass to get around this. Before, you could take several active abilities for different situations / strategies and use them on a situational basis without losing on anything on the passives side; you had a greater toolkit without sacrificing anything. The ressource pool worked as a way to let you choose the power that was the most useful, since you had several choices by default. But now that you get access to enough useful passives (?), it just makes more sense to make characters that excel in one or two specific powers and load on all the supporting passives, which makes for very one-dimensional characters, and makes the ressource pool feel limiting rather than empowering; in principal, it's the same as the spell levels from PoE1 (they also had a common ressource, casts per spell level), which only feel like a choice rather than a restriction simply because they don't allow you to sacrifice spell slots for passive effects. I also think the incentive for going multiclassing has been diminished greatly by this move, which I think is disheartening; I'm not even sure if there is a benefit in multiclassing for the character concept I had in mind now, but again, I'll have to look at the changes in details myself first. At the same time, the change probably increased what you can achieve with min/maxing, which is not necessarily a good move in my book either. All of this might all be just me being scared of change, but I'll get back to this thread once I had some time with the patch. I think this might be you overstating how powerful the new passives are. I'm sure there are some situations where picking up another active ability is worse, but in practice my experience is that the vast majority of passives are not useful for my specific character build, so over the course of the backer beta I get like one or two of the new passives and put the rest into existing actives or existing passives. At least from my quick cursory look at some classes, an example power level of passives is like: single weapon style, two weapon style, two-handed weapon style OR bear's fortitude, snake's reflexes, bull's will. I mean... I *guess* you can just pick up a couple low-level active abilities/spells and spend the next 3 levels picking up all those passives, but in reality you'll probably pick on average one at most from that row of passives. They offer opportunity for diversification and a little fine-tuning of your character, but generally not much more.

You have to reassign crew to work on the emergency, using Report! Wow this was utterly unobvious to me that "Report!" was that.

Subbing. The auto-pause on enemy spotted is really borked right now. In addition to sometimes triggering way too early or unexpectedly, sometimes it doesn't trigger at all (for enemies that turn hostile after an interaction or cutscene, like the titan or the enemies in the adra).

The #1 good thing about BB4 is that it is a lot more stable on OS X now, since I most play the BB on my macbook pro these days (since we got a switch my wife has been hogging the TV for breath of the wild so no gaming PC for me). That alone makes the game feel much more enjoyable and closer to release-ready. Agree with most of the other positives, especially the extra ability/passives. Also it's funny what a small difference a UI change can make; I definitely used empower somewhat in past-BBs, but now having this throbbing glowing UI element gets me to use it all the time. Before I rested mostly to deal with injuiries I accumulate. Now I also rest just to reset my empowers. I never really thought casters were underpowered before, but they are certainly more responsive now, thanks to all the re-tuned spell cast times. Still some balance issues, for example if I empower Minoletta's Concussive Missiles I can instakill the harder enemies in the BB on Path of the Damned; meanwhile if I empower Dire Blessing I get............ ? I tried ship combat out and found it mostly baffling and tedious; in the end I just charged and boarded. I'm hoping this is something that gets fixed in the main game with a tutorial or something.